The control of "dot-org" domains has been bought by a private company

From an article written by Esther Dyson in the Washington Post:

One of the Internet’s most trusted assets — the dot-org domain used by nonprofits from UNICEF to your local food bank — is being hijacked. Dot-org, which was built to support nonprofits globally, is being sold to the highest bidder with almost no public discussion or consideration of alternatives...

Dot-org, though, is special. Under the stewardship of the Public Interest Registry (PIR), the organization to which ICANN delegates control and operation of the dot-org domain, dot-org serves the nonprofit community as a trusted partner. Nonprofits provide websites and use email with confidence and peace of mind. Even while business interests captured most of the Internet’s policymaking, dot-org remained protected from profit-driven rulemaking.

Today, though, that independence is under threat. The Internet Society, a nonprofit to which ICANN delegated the duty to host PIR, announced a deal in November to sell PIR and its license to sell dot-org names for more than $1 billion. The buyer is Ethos Capital, a private-equity firm with investments in digital advertising, data brokering and other Internet services...